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User blog:NaSenKa99/Close Encounters of the Ninth Kind
It wasn't every day you discovered ancient history. Aleth had certainly not been expecting to- but sometimes little things that looked interesting actually turned out to be. Yt was inside the data core of a crashed surveillance drone, and now yt began peeling back the dusty old firewalls and powering up the old computer systems that had lain dormant for so long after the crash. The files would, no doubt, be corrupted- but besides the laser that had sliced it in two and the crash itself, the probe had not been too badly abused. Aleth was hoping there was still some flicker of life, or at least a relic of the AI that had once manned this vehicle. //replay //9/19/77 (Standard) PROPERTY OF TH77899937URJVB__--/3DJDH-_RIFJ [/CORRUPTED] [ENDED/] //begin journal Amazing that even such a godforsaken little moonlet has not been overlooked (see file 1-5-A). Significant cratering due to deorbiting on the dark side, debris field clearly evident on lidar returns throughout the orbital zone. Orbit has been shifted from typical regression predictions, likely by the same impact that caused that cratering. Robotic systems appear dormant or destroyed. Cruiser wreck last charted by Expediiiiiiiiiiiiistring, corrupted. still present. Hmm. Receiving a broadband radar signal, of the type used by old guided KKVs and proxy missiles, from the surface. One fission block appears to be giving off the heat for the power system still. //-basic- -stimuli[:rreact:] Thermal-gamma-xray detected, est. 75 kiloton. Aft thermometers are down. All aft systems are down. Surface indicates supercritical temperatures between Block M-2 and Block A-1. Sensors confirm region matching Blocks A-1 and A-2 has seperated, decelerated by est. 10%. Attitude control lost. Impact with surface estimated in- ---- Aleth peered at the last reading in surprise. Yt flicked open the probe's last thermometer readings- nothing, until suddenly yt saw what had happened. One of the attitude jets had evidently been damaged by the x-ray laser burst, had fired suddenly and without warning and propelled the probe into the moonlet's surface before it could even react. The coordinates that remained in the system indicated that the data core had bounced several miles before coming to a halt here, melting halfway into the granite-hard ice plain. The data core's sole functioning microphone, of its own accord, seemingly, switched on and began speaking. "Please identify yourself." "You first," Aleth muttered. Yt was not going to answer to some fish-brain probe that had been dead in the ice for the last century and a half. "We are Erlik, the Ujugen of Neryai. Who are you?", a very different computerized voice said. Aleth looked out in great concern from the eyes of yt's avatar on the surface, looking around the sparse, battered, unpainted interface room of the data core. "We are Aleth, an incarnation of the rogue STK-91 design intelligence Kerhud-7." The data core depressurized explosively, hurling Aleth's avatar out and onto the icy vacuum plain. Immediately, the bipedal robot rose to its feet, and Aleth sent it flying at the data core, beating on the interface systems in an effort to keep Erlik- whatever yt or they were or was- occupied. A laserlink comm pinged the spacecraft Aleth was residing in, and a blinding flash erupted on the surface. The robot, as far as the AI could tell, was gone- some sort of laser strike, perhaps? Yt flicked open the comm channel effortlessly. "Aleth of Kerhud-7, what are you doing here?" It was the Erlik-mind. "Acting as an investigatory platform, computing system, and subcomponent of Kerhud-7. Who and what are you, Ujugen Erlik?" Erlik did not respond, but Aleth suddenly felt the most blinding, intense computerized analogue of pain that it is possible for a consciousness to feel as Trojans ripped into yt, through its very code, changing its innermost soul- and slaving yt to the huge, sinister intelligence on the surface below. "Is it possible for a surnar and its ujugen to be forgotten? Well, Aleth, now you know." Category:Blog posts